Review Summary: High Road finds a musical middle-ground.
Whether you were a long-time fan, or someone who considered her brand of early 2010’s electropop “the death of music”, it seemed like almost everyone came together for Kesha when she released Rainbow in 2017. That album crafted the perfect formula of tender ballads, bops with big hooks, and tongue-in-cheek ditties. There was something for everyone, and the result of that was the community at large taking her music seriously for the first time. While I loved Kesha from the start – Animal contains a lot of hidden gems once you look past the trashy singles – it felt vindicating to experience the public opinion of her change so dramatically. It’s unfortunate that she squanders a lot of that goodwill on her follow-up, 2020’s High Road.
I can understand wanting to move back to her party girl roots after Rainbow – Kesha clearly loves to entertain, and wants to send people more often looking for a dance partner than a box of tissues. Lead single “Raising Hell” proved that she could throw back to her old persona without sacrificing any of her newly-sharpened songwriting prowess. It’s nothing more than a feel-good party song, but she enlists Big Freedia for a bombastic, horns-blaring chorus that I couldn’t get out of my head for the entire back half of 2019. It’s a huge success. “Resentment”, which was released a few weeks before the album dropped, would’ve fit right in on Rainbow with it’s gorgeous acoustic guitar instrumental and crushingly honest lyrics – “I don’t hate you babe, it’s worse than that, ‘cause you hurt me and I don’t react”. It’s equally successful, and demonstrates the duality of Kesha as an artist.
Those two singles pointed towards High Road being an equally rewarding mixed-bag, and while there probably still is something for everyone on this album, there are a lot of moments that shouldn’t have been for anyone. Kesha reverts to a lot of her old tactics from her Animal and Cannibal days, and their presence is wholly unwelcome in 2020. Tacky spoken-word sections are a stain on “Tonight” and the otherwise great title track, silly vocal enunciations bring down the creative and cute 8-bit production on “Birthday Suit”, and juvenile lyrics make “My Own Dance” almost unlistenable – seriously, “don’t circumcise my circumstance”? A lot of tracks would have been perfectly replay-able pop songs just through Kesha’s undeniable charisma, but her tendency to push it too far comes off as obnoxious, and at times cringeworthy.
Fortunately, sometimes it pays off for Kesha to lean into her old persona. On “Kinky”, which literally features (the old spelling of) Ke$ha, she gives us the most pure-pop moment on High Road, a sex-positive anthem with a giant chorus that sounds like it could be a #1 hit both a decade ago and today. High Road is unapologetic for sure, and I can’t fault Kesha for leaning into her musical vices because it’s what made her so popular in the first place. Occasionally, however, she commits the truly unforgivable crime of losing her essence sounding generic, like on “Chasing Thunder”, which could be an Imagine Dragons off-cut.
“The Potato Song” is a weird, grating romp containing a kazoo choir of all things, and I found it painful to listen to more than once, but I’ll prefer it over “Chasing Thunder” any day, because while I listened to it I could feel how much fun Kesha was having. I’m rooting for Kesha and I want to be a part of the journey where she can have fun making music again. It’s ultimately more sustainable for her career, and I know she has the potential to create a full album of her party-girl image channeled through mature songwriting and a focused delivery. Until then, I’ll take the hits and misses as they come.
